Client Services

Colin has worked with many UK international companies, including five of the top ten FTSE 100 multinationals, on wide-ranging aspects of their global pensions provision. Working with CFOs, Treasurers, HR Directors and Group Pensions Managers, he has advised on global pensions risk, provided insights on the impact of new legislation, implemented international pension plans, and dealt with pensions issues in M&A. His experience covers many countries – from Bangladesh to Brazil, Finland to France, Laos to Luxembourg, Togo to Trinidad & Tobago and many others in between.

Since 2000, when he led Nordic pensions services for one of the world’s largest employee benefit consultancies, Colin has led specialist global advice to many organisations in the Nordic region. He has advised the region’s largest multinationals on their global pensions plans, helped head offices understand information from local advisers, and has led Nordic pensions bulk purchase annuity and ALM projects for global employers.

Colin has a strong interest in pensions in Africa. In August 2024, Colin was a keynote international speaker at an industry thought leadership forum run by major African provider Old Mutual. The event was attended by government officials, regulators, employers and pension funds. He partnered with senior management at Old Mutual, and other local advisory firms, and spoke about trends in global pension provision, especially the new developments in Collective Defined Contribution in the UK, Netherlands and elsewhere. The audience was extremely interested in UK developments, and Colin noted that there is a lot that other countries could learn about South Africa’s own approach to pensions, including recent 2-pots legislative reforms.

A multinational company wanted to understand its global pensions risk better. Colin acted as a retained adviser to their global Pensions Investment Committee. He attended regular governance meetings with the local management for their main global pension plans; provided insights and opinions on actions to take in each country; and worked effectively with the local advisory teams to get things done.

“We enjoyed working with Colin and found him one of the strongest advocates of working together, to grow client relationships and holding teams accountable. Colin was the “go to” on European pension topics for our teams. This contributed to business success. We will miss Colin and wish him all the best for the future.”

Colin was seconded to the UK Pensions Regulator to lead a major high-profile government-sponsored project and to assess the impact of introducing Solvency II-style capital requirements on UK and European Union pension funds. Colin led the UK actuarial modelling work (including calculations for all 5,000+ UK pension schemes). presented at UK industry stakeholder discussion groups and represented the UK at EIOPA Working Parties. The reports showed the UK pension liabilities would push up UK pension liabilities by up to £400bn. Partly due to the size of the figures, the European Union abandoned plans to implement the reforms. The UK government at the time said it would harm businesses’ abilities to invest, grow and create jobs, and put more pension schemes at risk.